Essay on The Oresteia - The War-of the-Sexes in Eumenides

In Oresteia by Aeschylus, the Greek play, gender roles are depicted as both atypical and typical of the male and female standard

As proof of his theory, he points to Athena, the goddess who came to life from Zeus's forehead, living proof that" the father can father forth without a mother" (Furies, 673). Here, Apollo thoroughly follows the typical patriarchal strategy of denying women their rights and pushing them to the alienated boundaries of society by trying to make marriage more sanctified and unchanged than the parent-child relationship and in denying the mother's support in the offspring of a marriage. Athena, the reigning judge at the trial, is moved by a very different purpose, but she, also, supports the concept of male superiority like Apollo. It is true that her primary concern is for peace and an order of justice that will ensure peace. This implies that

For this informative report I will attempt to point out the roles women and how they are viewed in ancient Greece. I will then show how these views are present in Homer’s "The Odyssey." How are women, goddess or mortal, conveyed in "The Odyssey?"

In ancient Greece, it was crucial that men proved their masculinity in order to uphold their worth and earn them a place in social establishments. An important aspect of human life is a man’s masculine identity and how it plays a role in society. However with this idea of masculinity came limitations that were not to be crossed. Ancient Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, both function to provide their own view on masculinity in society through the reverse sex similes. In the Iliad the crucial role of Achilles as a warrior and his association with maternal protection, as represented through it’s reverse sex maternal similes, ultimately proves problematic. This intrinsic part of man to fight on the battlefield to win timê and kleos is ultimately

Studies concerning the lives of women in classical Athens have sparked much controversy because, despite the apparent fascination with femininity manifested in art and drama, we have no evidence voicing the opinions of the actual women themselves. This presents a

Throughout the "Oresteia," Aeschylus portrays gender as a social issue that results in increasing miasma within the House of Atreus. Aeschylus engages the cultural significance behind such sexist disputes by showing gender-based competition among Greeks who feel threatened when others do not maintain their expected masculine and feminine identities. However, he indicates that when women do act accordingly, they are still belittled from both men and other women. Through his portrayal of sexist double standards and society's rejection of diverse gender expression, Aeschylus exposes the widespread, unjust underestimation of females, who in the end, ironically possess authority. For an Athenian citizen, power and

In “The Trojan Women,” there are four enduring women who dominate the play and only two men who say anything at all. Moving us with their rants and dramatic reactions, these women engulf the audience in overwhelming grief and irresistible pride. Euripides emphasizes these four women to help us understand one of his main themes. Hecuba with her pride, Cassandra with her virginity and uncanny wisdom, Andromache with her misery and heartache, and Helen with her powerful, seductive reasoning all represent superior illustrations of feminism throughout the play.

Sophocles, in Oedipus at Colonus, further expands on the Oresteia’s idea of the polis vs. the oikos. When Oedipus arrives at Colonus, he is a suppliant after being cast into exile by his son, Polynices. Oedipus soon learns from his daughter Ismene that Creon and Polynices want to take Oedipus because there was a prophecy that whatever country contained the body of Oedipus would be free from harm. The prophecy here sets up the conflict within Oedipus’ own oikos. Oedipus himself, seems to be aware of this issue.

In Aeschylus’s trilogy, Oresteia, the tragic manifesto paints a bloody chain of murder, adultery, betrayal, and kinslaying, in which DIKE (justice) and the relation of women to social and family structure serve as central themes. The Greeks were a misogynistic culture, in which women were relegated to an inferior status in society. Women were only given a limited voice because the family was the sovereign unit of society. The rule of justice stood for patriarchy. Cassandra’s importance is merely in the first play but her prophetic visions and declarations about the House of Atreus peal through the entire trilogy.

For example, Athena, one of the main characters in Aeschylus’s “The Eumenides,” was born from the head of her father Zeus. Women obviously give birth to children, but this led me to believe that since Athena was born from

The first example in which institutionalization of justice interconnects with the institutionalization of patriarchy is the gender-based double standards depicted by powerful diction and interesting imagery found in the passage. The reader understands, based on the text, that Orestes’s act of murder is not valued like Clytemnestra’s act of murder. Orestes appears to be avenging his father; the “noble man to die, covered with praise” (line 633), “the lord of the squadrons, that magnificent man” (line 645) and “guardian of their house” (line 755). These lines describe Agamemnon in a positive manner—a man that was killed without a justified reason. The use of the words “noble”, “praise”, “magnificent”, and “guardian” have positive connotations

In Antigone and Lysistrata the tension between the polis and oikos is reflected in different ways. Antigone prioritizes oikos over polis, while Creon prioritizes polis over oikos. The men in Lysistrata favor fighting for the state over being at home while the women want their husbands with them instead of being at the war. We find ample evidence of different conflicts and similarities in both plays, but the male's prioritizing polis over oikos and the female's prioritizing oikos over polis causes the central tension in Antigone and Lysistrata.

In the Oresteia there seems to be a continuing cycle of revenge. Someone is murdered and then a relative must kill the murderer, therefore becoming a murderer himself. A new chosen one is then selected to take revenge on that person who killed before him and the cycle goes on and on. The furies also play a part in this cycle of revenge. They seek out those who kill their blood relatives and haunt them and torture them for eternity. So basically they also take revenge for the ones that have been murdered. Revenge is a continuing theme throughout the play until Athena has a hand in making it come to an end.

Every human being has within him an ideal man, just as every piece of marble contains in a rough state a statue as beautiful as the one that Praxiteles the Greek made of the god Apollo.Greek myth is comprised of many Gods and Goddesses and the stories of how they came to be and of their life stories. And this is the story of the God apollo One God that caught my eye was Apollo, was associated with many aspects of life in the time of the Greek gods. Apollo’s father was Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus, though married to Hera, had some problems with fidelity. He impregnated Leto, the daughter of a Titan.When he was four days old, he asked Hephaestus to make him silver bows and arrows. Hephaestus created them for him. Apollo was

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche explained Greek culture as a battle between what he called the Apollonian and Dionysian forces (Campbell 334). The Apollonian, named after the god Apollo, is “order, lawfulness, perfect form, clarity, precision, self-control, and individuation” (Schact). Fiona Jenkins describes it as “an art of the visible: it is linked to the power of dreams, illusion . . . Through the Apollonian moment of art the individual is reconstituted as a product of his own ‘dream.’” Joseph Campbell adds that Apollo is the god of prophecy, light, and the sky (336). He is also associated with purification of guilt and error (Fagles 17).